When Spine Implants Cause Paralysis, Who Is to Blame?

Spinal-Cord Simulators Are Intended to Relieve Pain

Rick Greenwood checked in for an overnight stay at a Dallas hospital two years ago to have a spinal-cord stimulator implanted in his back. The surgery was meant to relieve the back pain that had troubled him for more than 40 years, but when he left the hospital one month later, he was pushed out in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down.

Mr. Greenwood, 66 years old, is among more than 100 patients who have experienced partial or permanent paralysis in recent years after having spinal-cord stimulators inserted in...